(An earlier version of this article was previously published as "The
Forgotten History of the Single Transferable Vote in the United
States," in Representation 34, number 1 (Winter 1996/7).)

The United States has always had a tradition of single-member district,
winner-take-all elections. So it is hardly surprising then that few
Americans are aware of our history of experimentation with proportional
representation (PR) elections. Admittedly these experiments were few in
number. During the first half of the 20th century, two dozen American
cities used for a time the single transferable vote (STV)--a form of
proportional representation that is often called "choice voting" today.
The story of how proportional representation came to be adopted and
eventually abandoned provides some useful information about the history
of this voting system, its political effects, and the politics of
voting system reform.

THE HISTORICAL ROOTS OF PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

The political roots of proportional representation in the United States
originated in the Progressive Movement of the early 20th century.
Besides such issues as child labor laws, anti-monopoly legislation, and
women’s suffrage, Progressives were also interested in government
reform. Many were particularly concerned about the corruption in urban
governments. Large cities often were dominated by ‘party machines,’ of
which Tammany Hall in New York City was the most infamous. Bribery,
kickbacks, favoritism, and voting fraud were rampant in these cities.
The Progressives wanted to clean up these cities and blunt the power of
the party bosses.

Their urban reform program included such things as the non-partisan
ballot and replacing elected mayors with appointed city managers. Some
Progressives also added proportional representation to this reform
agenda. They argued that winner-take-all, single-member district
elections served to reinforce the power of urban political machines. It
was not unusual for machines to win almost all the seats on city
councils, based on only 50%-60% of the vote. PR was seen was a way to
break these one-party monopolies and to allow for the fair
representation of a variety of political parties.

The Proportional Representation League of the United States was also
instrumental in promoting the use of PR. Founded in 1893, the League
soon followed the lead of English electoral reform groups and endorsed
the single transferable vote as the most preferable version of PR. The
League eventually began to enjoy some political success when it decided
in 1912 that its most realistic goal would be to promote the adoption
of PR on the city level. Cities presented the fewest legal and
procedural obstacles to PR. Usually cities would only need to change
their charters to adopt PR elections. This change could be made by
referendums that would be voted on directly by citizens, thereby
avoiding the need to convince government officials to pass this reform.

Proportional representation received an important boost in 1914 when
the National Municipal League, a leading proponent of urban reform,
included PR elections in its model city charter. Soon afterwards, in
1915, Ashtabula, Ohio became the first American city to adopt PR
elections. Before long, Boulder, Kalamazoo, Sacramento, and West
Hartford followed suit. In the mid-1920s, the first large urban areas,
Cleveland and Cincinnati, adopted PR elections, and two other Ohio
cities, Toledo and Hamilton, soon joined them. The greatest victory of
PR advocates came in 1936 when voters in New York City approved the
adoption of PR elections by a large margin. Interest in PR jumped
dramatically as a result, with it eventually being adopted in eleven
other cities, including seven in Massachusetts. In all, two dozen
American cities joined the PR camp.

EFFECTS ON REPRESENTATION

What political effects did proportional representation have on the
cities that adopted it? In particular, did PR fulfill the political
promises of it proponents to reduce corruption, ensure fair
representation, and increase voter participation? Or did it confirm the
fears of PR critics who predicted confused voters, lower turnout, and
increased political divisiveness?

Scholars have begun to shed some light on these questions. The most
extensive research to date has been produced by Kathleen Barber and
several colleagues. Their study, Proportional Representation and
Electoral Reform in Ohio, systematically analyzed the political effects
of PR in five Ohio cities. In many cases their findings were also
confirmed by results in other PR cities. For example, Barber found that
choice voting produced fairer and more proportional representation of
political parties. In particular, it eliminated the tendency of
winner-take-all systems to exaggerate the seats given to the largest
party and to underrepresent the smaller parties. In the election before
the adoption of PR in Cincinnati, the Republicans won only 55% of the
vote, but received 97% of the seats on the council. In the first PR
election, the results were much more proportional, with the Republicans
winning 33.3% of the seats based on 27.8% of the vote, and the rival
Charter party winning 66.7% of the seats on 63.8% of the vote.

Similarly, in the last pre-PR election in New York City, the Democrats
won 95.3% of the seats on the Board of Alderman with only 66.5% of the
vote. During the use of PR, the Democrats still had a majority of the
seats, but it was a much smaller one that reflected more accurately
their strength in the electorate. In 1941, proportional representation
gave the Democrats 65.5% of the seats on 64% of the vote. Moreover, it
also produced representation for the Republicans and three smaller
parties in proportion to their voting strength. Similar results
occurred in the other PR cities, demonstrating that this system greatly
improved the accuracy of partisan representation.

Proportional representation also encouraged fairer racial and ethnic
representation. It produced the first Irish Catholics elected in
Ashtabula, and the first Polish-Americans elected in Toledo. In
Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Toledo, African-Americans had never been able
to win city office until the coming of PR. Significantly, after these
cities abandoned PR, African-Americans again found it almost impossible
to get elected.

EFFECTS ON POLITICAL MACHINES

At times, proportional representation helped undermine the power of
political machines and party bosses. In several cities, such as
Cincinnati, the machines lost their majorities and their grip on power.
After the transition to PR, Cincinnati went from a city with one of the
worst reputations for corruption to one that won praise for the
integrity and professionalism of its city government. Interestingly,
even in cities where the dominant party retained its majority, PR
sometimes helped to curb the power of the party bosses. It did so by
allowing the election of independent Democratic and Republican
candidates--candidates nominated by petition and not beholden to party
bosses. PR proponents were correct, then, in predicting that this
candidate-centered system would take power away from party leaders and
give more of it to voters.

EFFECTS ON WASTED VOTES

Proponents of proportional representation also believed it would
minimize wasted votes. They argued that the ballot transfer process
would ensure that most people would cast effective votes--votes that
actually elected someone to office. The evidence supports this claim.
In Cincinnati, the number of effective votes improved dramatically,
rising from an average of 56.2% in the three pre-PR elections to an
average of 90% for the 16 PR elections. Similar effects were found in
other PR cities. In Cleveland, the number of effective votes increased
from an average of 48.3% in the pre-PR period to an average of 79.6%
during the PR period. And in New York City, the number of effective
votes grew from an average of 60.6% to 79.2% with PR.

EFFECTS ON THE PARTY SYSTEM

How did proportional representation effect the size of the party
systems in these cities? Did it subvert the traditional American
two-party system, as some critics feared it would? Not always. In some
cities, PR produced a stable two-party system. In Cincinnati, the PR
elections were contested between the Republicans and the Charter
Committee, with no minor party candidates winning representation.
Indeed, only once in all of the PR elections in the five cities in Ohio
did a minor party candidate win office--a Socialist in Ashtabula in
1915.

The situation was different in New York City--an intensely cosmopolitan
area with a variety of political cultures. PR nurtured a vigorous
multi-party system, where at any one time the Democrats and Republicans
were joined on the city council by three smaller parties, including the
American Labor party, the Fusion party, and the Communist party. In
general, however, PR did not seem to automatically favor a multi-party
system over a two-party system, but instead it tended to produce a
party system that reflected whatever degree of political diversity
already existed in particular cities.

EFFECTS ON VOTER TURNOUT

Proponents of proportional representation had predicted higher voter
participation, reasoning that having fewer wasted votes and more
choices at the polls would give citizens more incentive to vote.
Opponents had forecast a drop in turnout, with voters discouraged by
complicated ballots and incomprehensible vote counting procedures. In
reality, however, PR seemed to have little effect on voter turnout.
Barber and her colleagues looked at turnout rates before, during, and
after the use of PR in five Ohio cities and found little correlation
between voting system and the degree of voter participation. She
concluded that "the emergence and disappearance of local issues and
candidates appear to have had more to do with the act of voting than
did the form of the ballot." (1) The scattered evidence from other PR
cities seems to confirm the importance of local factors, with some
cities seeing increased turnout with the adoption of PR and others
seeing a decline.

EFFECTS ON POLITICAL STABILITY

Another common concern of PR critics was that it would increase
political conflict and divisiveness. They worried that it would
encourage so-called ‘bloc voting’ along ethnic, racial, religious, and
class lines, and that the resulting city councils would be paralyzed by
conflict. In practice, PR often did result in substantial bloc voting.
But as defenders observed at the time, so too did winner-take-all
elections. As noted earlier, PR also produced some city councils that
were more demographically and politically diverse. But there is no
evidence that this increased political pluralism had any detrimental
impact on the workings of these city councils. In the five Ohio PR
cities, Barber and her colleagues found "no systematic evidence of
greater dissension on PR elected councils, compared the councils
elected by other means.... Indeed, striking decreases in conflict were
found after PR/STV was implemented in Hamilton and Toledo." (2) This
lack of increased conflict may have resulted from the ballot transfer
process in choice voting, which may have encouraged politicians to be
more civil to each other so as not to risk alienating potential
supporters.

THE OVERALL EFFECTS OF PR

On the whole, from the available evidence, proportional representation
seemed to have a beneficial effect on the cities that adopted it. It
clearly produced more representative government and, where voters
wanted it, a more diverse party system. Large increases in the number
of effective votes were also enjoyed in these cities. It may not have
resulted in the substantial increases in voter turnout that proponents
predicted, but neither did it produce the increases in voter alienation
that critics feared. And finally, even though PR city councils were
often more diverse politically, this did not seem to impair their
political efficiency or effectiveness.

THE ABANDONMENT OF PR

If proportional representation amassed such a generally favorable
record, why was it eventually rejected by all but one U.S. city,
Cambridge, Massachusetts? The answer to this question is complex, with
a number of factors playing a role in the abandonment of PR. Sometimes
the reasons were primarily local. In a few cities dissatisfaction grew
over other elements of the reform charters, such as the city manager,
and when the reform charter was thrown out, PR went with it.

However, there were several common factors at work in many of the
cities that abandoned proportional representation. For instance, this
system universally came under attack from the politicians and parties
who lost power and privileges. In Michigan and California, the dominant
political parties mounted legal challenges and the courts in these
states ruled that PR violated their constitutions. A more common attack
was the effort to repeal PR by popular referendum. The referendum was a
two-edged sword for PR--initially making it easier to adopt this
reform, but also making it easier for opponents to challenge it. In
Cleveland, well-financed opponents sponsored five repeal referendums in
the first ten years of PR, with the final one succeeding. Similarly, PR
opponents in Hamilton finally won their repeal effort after four failed
referendums in 12 years.

Another common factor contributing to the demise of proportional
representation was the inability of supporters to defend it
effectively. By 1932, the PR League was losing steam. It was unable to
finance its separate existence and had to merge with the National
Municipal League. In some cities, the progressive political coalition
that supported PR gradually disintegrated. Important reform leaders
lost interest over the years, moved to the suburbs, or died. Two
exceptions to this trend were Cincinnati and Cambridge, both of which
had active and well-supported organizations dedicated to defending PR.
In Cincinnati the Charter Committee aggressively defended proportional
representation and it survived there for over thirty years, despite
repeated challenges. The Cambridge Civic Association has also proved to
be an energetic and capable defender of PR and has defeated every repeal
effort to date.

Another factor working against defenders of proportional representation
in many cities was the controversial nature of minority representation.
Many Americans in the early twentieth century were hostile to political
and racial minorities--the very groups aided by PR. Opponents of PR
were not above fanning the flames of prejudice in their efforts to get
rid of this reform. In particular, critics often played upon two of the
most basic fears of white, middle class Americans: communists and
African-Americans.

In Cincinnati, race was the dominant theme in the successful 1957
repeal effort. The single transferable vote had allowed African
Americans to be elected for the first time, with two blacks being
elected to the city council in the 1950s. The nation was also seeing
the first stirrings of the Civil Rights movement and racial tensions
were running high. PR opponents shrewdly decided to make race an
explicit factor in their repeal campaign. They warned whites that PR
was helping to increase black power in the city and asked them whether
they wanted a "Negro mayor." Their appeal to white anxieties succeeded,
with whites supporting repeal by a two to one margin.

In New York City, fear of communism proved the undoing of proportional
representation. Although one or two Communists had served on the
PR-elected city council since 1941, it was not until the coming of the
Cold War that Democratic party leaders were able to effectively exploit
this issue. As historian Robert Kolesar discovered, the Democrats made
every effort in their repeal campaign to link PR with Soviet Communism,
describing the single transferable vote as "the political importation
from the Kremlin," "the first beachhead of Communist infiltration in
this country," and "an un-American practice which has helped the cause
of communism and does not belong in the American way of life."(3) This
"red scare" campaign resulted in the repeal of PR by an overwhelming
margin.

Just as the adoption of the single transferable vote in New York City
prompted other cities to consider this reform, its well-publicized
defeat there also encouraged repeal efforts in other PR cities. PR was
abandoned in neighboring Long Beach and Yonkers in 1947 and 1948.
Repeal campaigns also won in Boulder (1947), Toledo (1949), and
Wheeling (1951). The PR movement never recovered from these defeats;
and although supporters remained optimistic, the 1950s saw the repeal
of PR in one city after another. By 1962, only Cambridge, Massachusetts
retained this system.

While the repeal of proportional representation in these American
cities is taken by opponents as evidence that this voting system
failed, proponents argue that it is more accurate to conclude that this
system was rejected because it worked too well. They note that PR
worked well in throwing party bosses out of government--bosses who
never relented in their attempts to regain power--and it worked well in
promoting the representation of racial, ethnic, and ideological
minorities that were previously shut out by the winner-take-all system.
For advocates of PR, then, it was the very political successes of this
system that set the stage for a political backlash that was effectively
exploited by its opponents and eventually led to the its demise in most
of these cities.

In Detroit, there have been three mayors in the past two years and the current one has come under scrutiny. Perhaps a system like instant runoff voting will help bring political stability to motor city.